


I Saw the Devil Today (He Looked A Lot Like Me)

by notjustalittlegirl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Episode: s03e11 Nevermore, Gen, Guilt, Monty is Not Okay, Octavia is Trying, Season/Series 03, Suicidal Thoughts, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-23
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 09:11:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9878978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustalittlegirl/pseuds/notjustalittlegirl
Summary: "Octavia stood behind him, gasping from the exertion of her fight against his mother. Monty looked at her passingly, and she seemed to be trying to decide if she should place a hand on his shaking shoulder. He moved away, mind screaming in horror and protest, not wanting her to have to put a hand on his filthy, tainted body. He was tainted, he was disgusting.What have I done?"After the events of Nevermore (3x11), Monty and Octavia have a talk.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I actually first published this a while ago, but then I decided that I wasn't quite happy with it and took it down. But... here it is again.   
> I do not own The 100, and I am making no money off of this. This story is unbeta'd, and all mistakes are mine. Title is from Wrong Side of Heaven by Five Finger Death Punch

The gun fell from Monty’s limply trembling hand and hit the ground beside its victim with a barely audible clack of metal against earth. He looked down to the dirt, stained with his mother’s blood, trying hard not to see it, to pretend it wasn’t there. His eyes fought with his brain, and seemed to be glued open, staring blankly at the spot where his mother had fallen.

Where she had died after he pulled a trigger and sent a bullet into her.

Octavia stood behind him, gasping from the exertion of her fight against his mother. Monty looked at her passingly, and she seemed to be trying to decide if she should place a hand on his shaking shoulder. He moved away, mind screaming in horror and protest, not wanting her to have to put a hand on his filthy, tainted body. He was tainted, he was disgusting.  

_What have I done?_

Octavia spoke in a whisper, as softly and gently as she had ever done anything in Monty’s recent memory.

“Thank you, Monty. You saved my life.”

He didn’t answer her. He collapsed, legs giving out from beneath him and sending him downward, but before even Monty’s knees could hit the ground next to where his mother had breathed her last breath, Octavia’s arms locked under his shoulders. She lowered him to sit on the ground, and sat carefully down next to him.

“Don’t look, Monty. Don’t.”

He couldn’t listen. He couldn’t do anything but look. _Look,_ said a voice in his head. A voice that sounded almost like Jasper’s. _Look at what you’ve done. Murderer._

Hannah Green’s eyes were still open, and they seemed to be locked on Monty’s own, no matter where he looked. The blood was everywhere, still leaking out of the bullet hole that he had put in her head. The gun was sitting next to her where he had dropped it, and it seemed to be taunting him.

_You killed your mother. You’re a murderer._

His hand twitched back towards the gun, nothing but pain and guilt coursing through his mind. Monty’s head hit the ground as he lost the strength to sit up, and he felt the tears start to come faster. Soon, Monty was rocking back and forth on the ground, not even trying to avoid getting his mother’s blood on him, but trying not to scream. His hands crept along the ground, trying to find a cold piece of metal that he had dropped without using the non-existent strength required to actually look for it.

“Mother,” he whispered, choking on the words. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Monty’s fingers closed around the gun, and his shaking hand brought the weapon up to his own temple. It was the only thing that made sense. The only thing he could do anymore. The only way.

_Mother, I know that I deserve to hurt for this. I deserve to suffer, but I can’t live with this._

The metal was cold and unforgiving, but not as unforgiving as Monty knew the bullet fired from it would be. That is, if he had any time to feel it before he simply wasn’t anything anymore. He hoped his mother hadn’t had enough time to fully register the pain, or the fact that she was being shot by her own son.

His finger found the trigger, a trigger he had pulled only minutes earlier, but before he could pull it and end his life, a warm and familiar hand was pulling the gun away from him.

Octavia.

He’d forgotten that she was still there. That anything existed outside of what he’d done.

She held the gun close to her, in the hand further away from Monty, keeping her wide and almost-frightened eyes locked on his tearful ones. She tucked the weapon into her own belt, but didn’t take her hand away from it.  

“Monty, what the hell?” If he didn’t know Octavia as well as he did, he would have said her voice sounded terrified.

“You can’t- You can’t do that to yourself! Look, I know what you must be feeling right now, but-”

“No.” Monty’s voice was steadier than Octavia had expected it to be after what had just occured. It was steadier than her own, trembling.

“You don’t know. And I deserve it. I deserve to die for this. If we were back on the Ark, I wouldn’t’ve needed to do it myself.”

Octavia didn’t answer, Instead, all she said was “get back in the rover, Monty. We’ll talk on the way back.”

She expected him to fight her, but he put up no resistance. Octavia took Monty’s hand, almost like an adult leading a scared child to safety, needing to feel that her friend was there, and hadn’t put a bullet into his own skull.

Before they returned to the car, Octavia knealt down beside the body of Hannah Green. Her eyes, so much like Monty’s, stared without seeing. She looked, for a moment, at the face of the woman who had tried to kill her only minutes ago. Instead of hatred, all Octavia could feel was sadness.

“Yu gonplei ste odon.”

She closed the woman’s eyes, and led Monty back to the rover.

He sat behind the steering wheel, trying to find the willpower to start it. Octavia prodded him as gently as she could, still in shock over what had just happened.

“Monty, more of them will be coming. We need to go, now, and I’ll crash us if I try to drive.”

He started the car without responding, and they made their way back down the road to Niylah’s.

They were silent for a while, with the only noise being the hum of the rover’s engine, but eventually the silence between the two teenagers became so loud and prominent that Octavia felt she needed to break it for Monty’s sake and her own.

“I do understand, Monty. My mother is dead because I am alive. I thought that way for so long, I felt that I killed her. But I needed to accept that it wasn’t my fault eventually, and so will you. It might take a long time, but you will.”

“Octavia, you didn’t physically send your mother out of the airlock. I shot mine in the head. There’s a difference.”

“It’s not your fault, Monty,” Octavia insisted. “It’s mine.”

He took his teary eyes off the road for a brief moment to look at her in surprise. “How is it your fault, Octavia?”

“I didn’t fight well enough. I’m a warrior, but I couldn’t fight well enough. If I could’ve fought her off, you wouldn’t have needed to save my ass. I’m so sorry, Monty. You saved my life by shooting her, so that makes it my fault. Blame me, hate me, Just not yourself.”

He didn’t stop the rover, but he slowed down enough to turn around and face his friend. “I  couldn’t blame you or hate you for something that wasn’t your fault. I don’t regret saving you, Octavia. I just wish-”

His voice, until now so calm and steady, broke, and suddenly Monty was full out sobbing behind the wheel of the car.

Octavia let go of the gun she hadn’t even realized she was still clutching to hold onto the steering wheel with one hand, just in case she needed to try her hand at driving the rover while Monty cried. Her free hand found her friend’s back, rubbing it and comforting him as best she knew how.

“Oh, Monty. I’m so, so sorry.”

There was silence for a minute more. The tears tapered off for the moment, and when Monty didn’t bring it up, Octavia felt she had to.

“Monty, I know it’s soon to discuss this, but I’m not sure when we’ll get a better time to. I won’t tell the others if you don’t want, but I need you to tell me. I won’t be able to let it go unless-”

She trailed off. Monty had an idea of what she was talking about, and his suspicions were confirmed when Octavia’s eyes flickered quickly down to the gun tucked into her belt. Her hand, which had come off the wheel once Monty had stopped crying, rested on it again, as if she expected Monty to lunge for it and put it against his head again.

“I don’t deserve to live after this,” he said, so quietly that it was almost inaudible, even to an ear that hadn’t been trained to hear everything by living under the floor. “I can’t live with myself.”

Octavia’s hand clenched into a fist, not wanting to let her emotions over that statement out, which would mostly involve screaming into the darkness. Instead, she only spoke, as calmly as she could.

“That’s not true, Monty. You- you deserve life more than almost anyone else I know. This doesn’t change that. You’re my friend, and we all need you more than you know, and not just because you’re good with technology.”

Monty had nothing to say to this, so Octavia kept talking, almost feverishly.

“When I saw you holding that gun to your head, Monty, I’m not going to lie: I was terrified. I don’t get scared much anymore, and I was terrified. I can’t imagine what we would have done if you’d killed yourself. I can’t-”She shut her mouth when Monty stopped the rover suddenly. He turned to look at her, whipping his head around, and Octavia noticed that he was still crying, although not sobbing as he had been earlier.

“Monty?”

His head collapsed limply against the steering wheel, barely missing the horn. Octavia didn’t know if that thing still worked, and had no desire to find out when there was an army of chipped nutcases wandering around the area looking for them. It wasn’t any longer than a minute before he started speaking again, but it was long enough for Octavia’s hand to drift from the gun towards her sword, ready to fight if ALIE’s army caught up to them.

“Thank you, Octavia. None of that is true, but thank you for saying it. It’s what I’d have said to you.”

She put a hand on his arm, half in a reluctant reminder that they needed to go, and half in an another attempt at comfort. She wasn’t really sure what to think about everything that had just happened, and how on earth she was going to be okay not watching Monty, or ever letting him near a gun again.

_Calm down, Octavia. Calm down. You’re not the one who killed your mother and almost killed yourself a few minutes ago._

“Monty,” she said again. “You’re hurting. A lot. And that’s okay.”

_Dear lord, I can’t do this! What the hell are you doing, Octavia? You’re not the person for this. But there’s no one else here, I have to say it._

“You’re allowed to be in pain. But, it’s forgiveness you want, then you’re forgiven. I forgive you. Your mother would forgive you. I might not have agreed with her even once, but I know she loved you. Even if she turned you in to Pike, she loved you. And you’ll forgive yourself someday.”

Monty started the rover again, as if trying to end the very difficult, and very one-sided, conversation. But Octavia wasn’t done.

“Promise me that you’ll at least try to forgive yourself. Monty, promise me. I know this is too soon to be talking about all this, but you have to promise!”

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll try, Octavia.”

She knew that, however much she wanted to keep pushing, to be sure, that feeble and possibly insincere promise would have to be enough for now.

Niylah’s house came into view, and Octavia could make out the shape of someone standing outside and frantically waving them in. She looked at Monty as he parked the rover, and he gave a shake of his head.

Octavia didn’t need anything else to understand her friend’s plea. She simply nodded, and he understood.

_I won’t tell. I promise._

She gave his hand a squeeze, and the two exited the rover together, neither quite the same as they had been when they got in to go to the dropship earlier.

   

   

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos/comments always appreciated. I hope this didn't suck.


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